An Editorial Responding to the Houston/PC Budget Cuts
[Editor’s note: The March issue of the Cooperator was already on the press before we knew the full scale of the Houston/PC budget cuts. We are publishing this editorial online in between issues to keep up with this fast-changing story.]
Premier Houston’s decision to “balance the budget” on the backs of some of the neediest people in the province without even a shred of “public consultation” is the most deplorable act by a Nova Scotia government in decades. He and the miniscule cadre of people who participated in making this decision deserve all of the scorn, catcalls, and derision that an outraged citizenry is heaping upon them.
Trusting our political lives to the occasional election of MLAs is just not working. In his only term, Darrell Dexter wrecked the NDP, which has never recovered. Stephen McNeil managed to win a 2nd term, only to see the Liberals almost wiped out of the legislature. Now we have Tim Houston, who won a super majority in part by making progress on his promise to improve health care.
But Houston did not give the voters even the slightest inkling that he was preparing to gut decades of carefully crafted environmental law, much less sharpening the budget butcher knife in the backroom with his cronies to severely wound or kill hundreds of programs that make life worth living for so many of us.
We just learned that Houston has revoked some of the cuts. We have admired Houston’s willingness in the past, to change his mind, given how few politicians were ever willing to admit making even the slightest mistake.
But we remain deeply disturbed by yet another provincial government setting policy in secret. The NDP, the Liberals, and now the PCs have all followed this dismal path.
If the people of Nova Scotia want to live in a morally defensible society, we are going to have to develop a radically different style of politics. The problems that Houston has confronted us with are happening all over the planet. And all around the planet, people have been developing new ways to practice politics.
In the coming months, the Cooperator will be exploring what people are doing to move away from the authoritarian decision-making politics that now dominates Nova Scotia and so much of the developed world. We will be looking for examples where people practice listening and inclusive decision-making; where communities are tackling problems at the level at which the problems occur; where everyone is committed to transparency and accountability; where communication with government is effective, bilateral, and based on mutual respect.
Elsewhere in Nova Scotia, people are experimenting with community land trusts to deal with the lack of affordable housing. Communities that are sick and tired of Nova Scotia Power’s soaring profits and phantom meter readings are setting up community-owned solar and wind. Community gardens and food pantries are springing up to deal with soaring food prices.
And if your imagination needs a little nudge about how such locally-based politics could work, take a look at some of the community-driven infrastructure on the Eastern Shore since the beginning of HRM in 1996, 30 years ago: Musgo Rider, the Old School, Eastern Shore Mental Health, the community well, the repurposing of St. Anselm’s and St. Philip Neri…and a little further back in time, the Railway Museum, Memory Lane Heritage Village, even the Fisherman’s Life Museum.
[If you’ve got a favorite community-driven project, send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll take a look.]
